Conservation of the Asian Elephant in Central India
Conserwotion of the Asiqn elephont in Centrql Indiq Sushant Chowdhury Introduction Forests lying in Orissa constitute the major habitats of In central India, elephants are found in the States of elephant in the central India and are distributed across Orissa, Jharkhand (pan of the erstwhile Bihar), and over 22 out of the 27 Forest Divisions. Total elephant southern part of \(est Bengal. In all three States elephants habitat extends over an area of neady 10,000km2, occupy a habitat of approximately 17,000km2 constituted which is about 2lo/o of 47,033km2 State Forest available, by Orissa (57'/), Jharkhand Q6o/o) and southern West assessed through satellite data (FSI 1999). Dense forest Bengal (7"/'). A large number of elephant habitats accounts for 26,073km2, open forest for 20,745km2 in this region are small, degraded and isolated. Land and mangrove for 215km2. \(/hile the nonhern part of fragmentation, encroachment, shifting cultivation and Orissa beyond the Mahanadi River is plagued by severe mining activities are the major threats to the habitats. The mining activities, the southern pan suffers from shifting small fragmented habitats, with interspersed agriculture cultivation. FSI (1999) data reports that the four Districts land use in and around, influence the range extension of of Orissa, namely, Sundergarh, Keonjhar, Jajpur and elephants during the wet season, and have become a cause Dhenkenal, have 154 mining leases of iron, manganese of concern for human-elephant conflicts. Long distance and chromate over 376.6km2 which inclu& 192.6km2 elephant excursions from Singhbhum and Dalbhum of forest. About 5,030km2 (or 8.8olo of total forest area) forests of the Jharkhand State to the adjoining States of is affected by shifting cultivation, most of which is on Chattisgarh (part of erstwhile Madhya Pradesh) and \fest the southern part.
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